✓ | DEAR FUTURE ME

032

"You're welcome, pumpkin," Scott said. "Let me get started on those pancakes, okay?"

"I'll clean up all of this wrapping paper." Skye offered, which her dad was glad to hear.

"It makes my life easier." He chuckled, getting up from his chair to get started in the kitchen. "Don't get any paper cuts."

"No promises." She joked.

Picking up pieces of torn wrapping paper from the floor, Skye paced back and forth from the living room and the kitchen, shoving all of the wrapping paper in the trash can, even pressing down on the trash inside to make more room. With each and every trip, Skye could start to smell her upcoming breakfast, which only made her more motivated to clean up all of the festive mess in the living room.

As Skye was just finishing up, a knock on the door appeared, which Skye found odd as it was only morning, and Levi wasn't supposed to come over for dinner for at least a few hours. Seeing as her dad was occupied in the kitchen, Skye offered to get the door for him.

"I'll get it!" She yelled out, receiving an "okay" from Scott as she walked to the door.

With sparkles in her eyes and a smile as bright as day, Skye opened the door, but then her face dulled as the absolute last person she wanted to see stood right in front of her on this once innocent Christmas morning.

"You... you're not supposed to be here," Skye said, slowly shutting the door behind her but leaving just a small crack open.

Diana Larson, aka the woman Skye once called mom. The last time she saw her was over two years ago when she showed up like this before, but that time Skye was safe as her dad was the one to answer the door. Before that time, Skye had last seen her in the courtroom where the judge deemed that she shouldn't have any custody or any contact at all with Skye. Despite the judge's words, Diana was persistent, but not persistent for the right reasons.

Skye's mom was once a kind, caring, and nurturing woman, at least in Skye's once innocent eyes. It was when Skye got older that she saw that Diana wasn't a good mother at all, and she especially wasn't a good wife to Scott either. The drugs, the hitting him then turning the tables and saying he hit her when he didn't, the yelling when she couldn't get her way, and many other things that ruined Skye's perception of her mother. But now Skye stood in front of her today, still not wanting anything to do with her, just as she said to the judge at the age of thirteen.

"You're not supposed to be here."

"No hello? Geez, it's Christmas and I'm your mother, dammit." Diana scoffed, arms crossed as she shivered with a torn coat swamping her now frail body. She looked absolutely awful, but Skye wouldn't dare say a thing as the only goal in mind was to get her the hell out of here.

"Well, you need to leave," Skye said, staying insistent on her mom leaving.

Skye's mom looked over at the new bike in the front yard, noticing the red bow that Skye had yet to take off as she kept forgetting and also didn't feel like stepping out into the cold. "What happened to that bike I got ya, huh? That's not the one I bought ya."

"It got ran over," Skye mumbled, looking down on the ground as she couldn't bear to look her in the eye anymore.

"What?" Her mom questioned. "I can't hear you."